Come November, the president and his party may find themselves succeeding most by failing the least.
Recently in Opinion Category
THE NEW YORK TIMESFRANK RICH
Wednesday's health care rally was one of President Obama's finest hours. It was so fine it couldn't be blighted even by his preposterous backdrop, a cohort of white-jacketed medical workers large enough to staff a hospital in one of the daytime soaps that refused to be pre-empted by the White House show.
WALL STREET JOURNAL STEPHEN MILLER
How the Cadences and Diction of the King James Bible Affected the Prose Style of American Writers
They see themselves as crusaders for human rights--protectors of the innocent, the voiceless, and the powerless.
PIERS BRENDON
Vice President Joe Biden complains that he is being driven crazy because so many people are betting on America's demise.
Civility isn't a panacea for our woeful political culture, but at least it could stop the trash talking.
His return to Buddhism could be one more scripted PR stunt. Or, it could be the path to redemption.
Liberals had a blast mocking Sarah Palin last weekend when she was caught addressing the Tea Party Convention with a cheat sheet scrawled on her hand. Even the president's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, couldn't resist getting into the act and treated a White House briefing to a Palin hand gag of his own.
Cynicism is among our most punctual instincts. Within days of the earthquake in Haiti, there came warnings of impending compassion fatigue, wagers of how long it would be before we turned away to the Super Bowl, the Olympics and the Oscars, leaving Haiti to misery.
Five hundred and fifty miles and two days apart, two political rituals with deep roots in American life unfolded last week: the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., and the tea-party convention in Nashville.
Five years ago, Lisa Shannon watched "Oprah" and learned about the savage, forgotten war here in eastern Congo, played out in massacres and mass rape. That show transformed Lisa's life, costing her a good business, a beloved fiancé, and a comfortable home in Portland, Ore. -- but giving her a chance to save lives in Congo.
SEN. CARL LEVIN
When the Senate Armed Services Committee hears Tuesday morning from the Defense Department's top leaders, we will hopefully begin the task of ending the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military. This change would improve our military's capability and reflect our commitment to equal opportunity.
It was not a referendum on Barack Obama, who in every poll remains one of the most popular politicians in America.
Calamities like the Haiti quake aren't just predictable--they're preventable.
Barack Obama has long compared himself to a Rorschach test. Liberals saw a progressive savior. Moderates saw a practical change agent. Americans saw promise of a post-partisan, post-racially divisive era. The projection was notably always considered positive.
BONO
IF we have overindulged in anything these past several days, it is neither holiday ham nor American football; it is Top 10 lists. We have been stuffed full of them. Even in these self-restrained pages, it has been impossible to avoid the end-of-the-decade accountings of the 10 best such-and-suches and the 10 worst fill-in-the-blanks.
Seven percent of Americans say they "attend religious services in someone's home." This surprising little fact was buried in a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which showed that Americans are as loosey-goosey in their religious practices as many have long suspected.
THE WASHINGTON POST
E. J. DIONNE
Certain decades shape the country's political life for generations by leaving behind an era to embrace or, at least as often, to scorn.
E. J. DIONNE
Certain decades shape the country's political life for generations by leaving behind an era to embrace or, at least as often, to scorn.
Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn't begin until 2001. Do we really care?)
